The Open Government Partnership was launched in 2011 by eight governments (the USA, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, South Africa, and the United Kingdom)․ This process was aimed at making the management system more transparent, participatory and innovative. Armenia presented its first action plan in 2012. So far 4 action plans have already been drawn up and completed. The 5th action plan is planned to be developed in the coming year.
Ms. Lilya Afrikyan, OGP Armenia Program Coordinator under RA Prime Minister’s Office/RA Contact Person said in the interview with Iravaban.net.
“The initiative, if we speak clearly, is an alternative, unique tool of dialogue, which provides joint work for citizens, civil society organizations, international partners and the government. Thanks to the rules of this tool, civil society representatives and experts have the opportunity to make their voices heard and make suggestions to the government and the government is committed to implementing them within two years,” she said.
In addition to the possibility to submit a proposal, there is also an opportunity to follow the process of their implementation, and to carry out monitoring.
The coronavirus pandemic and the Artsakh war unleashed by Azerbaijan on 27 September, 2020 have made some changes in the sectoral priorities. “The government is reviewing all its strategic actions, bringing them closer to solving the social and economic problems that arose after the war,” Lilya Afrikyan said, adding that in January and February, when collecting problems, all the issues that were important for the Government and the Armenian society would be taken into account.
The 11 commitments of the action plan for 2018-2020 have been completed. Six of them were proposals from civil society representatives, including legislative initiatives or changes that were not previously planned.
“The real dialogue with the civil society and the citizens is very important for the government. In general, during this process, when we develop an action plan, our partners are very active. We undertake commitments based on their suggestions, as a result of their consultations, but this activity is not observed during the implementation phase and thus it affects the quality of implementation, because it is one thing when you formulate the problem from the inside and start implementing it, and it is another thing when the beneficiary does not provide feedback on what changes have been made,” Lilya Afrikyan said and mentioned that it would be more desirable for the citizens to be active in the implementation stage as well, “We really need it.”
It should be noted that the publication has been prepared within the framework of the “Co-creation Support for the 2020-2022 OGP National Action Plan” project implemented by a consortium of 3 Non-Governmental Organizations “Armavir Development Center”, “Armenian Lawyers’ Association” and “Freedom of Information Center” with the support of the “OGP” Support Unit.
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